4 Topic Commentaries

A Glimpse into the Future of Analytical Instrument Design?

A Glimpse into the Future of Analytical Instrument Design?

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  Shira Joudan, PhD

  Environmental analytical chemistry

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  University of Alberta

  I am really excited about how new analytical instrumentation and data handling methods allow us to better understand the fundamental chemistry that occurs in the environment. For a long time, researchers have done their best with the tools available, but to me, it really feels like now is an amazing time to push our understanding with higher throughput experimentation and better measurements with improvements like faster online sampling or lower detection limits.

  Source
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  Alan K. Jarmusch, PhD

  Metabolomics and mass spectrometry

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  National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH

  “The Trans-NIH Metabolomics Core offers untargeted metabolomics. This unique capability that we’re bringing locally to NIEHS, and across the NIH, leverages the power of modern chemical instrumentation to make a lot of concurrent measurements without a researcher having to know beforehand exactly which chemicals or metabolites they want to measure.”

  Source
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  Ahmet Dogan, MD, PhD

  Hematopathology and clinical proteomics

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  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

  “Another significant difference from other protein assays we have, like ELISA and immunofluorescence, is that mass spectrometry is unbiased. With antibodies, you have to decide which ones to use. You basically see what you are looking for. With mass spectrometry, we’re not saying, ‘Show me whether this is expressed or not’. We are saying, ‘What’s all in here?’”

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  Polly Fordyce, PhD

  Microfluidics and biophysics

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  Stanford University

  “Microfluidics shrinks the physical space to do these fluidic experiments in the same way that integrated circuits reduced the real estate needed for computing,” Fordyce said. “In enzymology, we are still doing things in these giant liter-sized flasks. Everything is a huge volume and we can’t do many things at once.”

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